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Friends don't let friends write with POV

By Mark Obbie

Dahlia Lithwick continues the discussion that she started, and I joined, by summarizing her readers' suggestions about what the Supreme Court beat needs most. The big sticking point: whether a beat reporter also should offer straight-up opinion, in the reporter's voice. It's a healthy, nuanced debate. But it seems to treat opinion as a binary question: Is Adam Liptak's opinion set to on or off in this story? The more important dividing line, from where I sit, is whether a point of view is based on original reporting, or is simply a derivative product from an armchair analyst. Reporters should report, starting from a position of fairness and openness to various arguments, as I believe Liptak (cited by his paper's ombudsman Clark Hoyt as an example of a dangerous blend of the two forms) does in his work.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).